The World of Tactics

Chapter Nine: What Next?

"This world was a magnificent place. The world that we live in has a total of eight continents in total. To the Eastside, we have the Vrimoth and the Shimis continents. To the north and south sides, we had the two of the coldest continents, called Shibone and Jakrari respectively. To the west side are the Pheublea, Gauyath, and Iozihesh continents interconnected by a small stretch of land which is nicknamed the Triangles. Within the center was the Umux continent.

The main character originated at the center of most continents, the Umux continent. The darkest hour has begun rising and the epicenter of the story revolves around the center of the continent. Also, this is how the story has later been known as the awakening of the "Darkest Legendary Knight" passing down through the generations." A passage was written by an Anonymous Sage.

---

John Smith woke up after midnight and way before dawn arrived. It was still an hour or so before dawn approached and the sun began to rise over the yonder. There were four other militia guards at the gate replacing the four from yesterday. It was a rowdy morning, villagers, cats, dogs, and other waking sounds began to hammer somewhere within the village's wooden wall of logs. At first, it was just one or two and then it became three or four. Finally, the morning market began its business and he had waited long enough to see the sunrise and to catch the first gleam of sunlight.

Today is a good day for him to get around and find a ride to the capital barracks. It should not have been that hard to get there if he was able to talk to the captain of the guards. That was only if he was able to talk to the captain, that is. Since he got a nice sleep yesterday and yesterday's depressing mood had dissipated. He jumped directly down to the ground. He walked to the wooden stairs that led to the top of the wooden wall and approached one of the guards on top.

The wooden was quite sophisticated by lacing the wooden wall with some sort of platform that could handle multiple people on top. On the inside, there would be multiple poles that were attached from the bottom up to ensure that the platform is strong and stable. The stairs were also attached right next to the poles that support the platform. However, the stairs seem quite tricky to get up to the platform since the interconnected stairways are facing the gate when going up to the platform. This made it difficult for the enemies to get to the platform after they took control of the gate.

The guard took notice of him but ignored him after taking a single glance at him. He did not give up, however, to get the guard's attention. He poked the old guard a couple of times before the guard responded to him. The guard was quite old with a white and grey stubble beard along with a smoking pipe. A long scar that stretches from the side of an old man's [1] right ear was torn down to the neck and below the chest. The scar seems to be from the cause of some sort of animal claws. The old man's face looks quite odd while puffing smoke on the side of the oddly shaped right ear.

The old man asks grumpily because a kid from nowhere starts to poke at his morning sunshine. The old man said, "What chu want kid?"

He reworded his thought process while formulating the structure of his question, "Would you know where the guard captain is?" He tried to make sure that it was loud enough and clear enough for the old man to understand his question.

The old man raised his right eyebrow and said, "That would be me." Then another puff from the pipe, "Why chu lookin' for me, eh?"

He could see and smell the disgusting mouth of the old man that was turning blackish from yellow. He had almost instinctively made a back step, but he held his ground. He answers back with another question, "Do you happen to know how to get to the capital?"

The old man took a great breath through the pipe and blew out a perfect circle. The old man stared at him oddly with a skeptic scratch on his stubble beard (chin), "Why would a young'un like chu go there, eh?"

This time, it was a real business and he did not answer with another question, "I was supposedly sent to the capital's barracks but along the way..." He paused, rethinking how he should describe what happened in the last half of the sentence, "Hobgoblin attack."

This time the old man became serious, "Hoh, a hobgoblin!" Another smoke again, the old man looked at him up and down and considered it a bit more carefully, "Kid, tell me. Where and how far?"

From the looks of the old man's straight face, the old man finally thought that it was much more important now. So, he, too, told the old man the truth, "Roughly two travel days." He pointed down to where he was standing, "From here..." And he pointed at the same place that he came out of the forest and continued, "Through the forest over there."

Thinking again, he said, "There is a green bridge that is in the forest." Giving a rough estimate, he said, "It would take around a day to travel."

The old man enlarged his eye socket at how far the distance was and said, "Well, kid, to the capital it is." The old man continues, "Follow me, we got things to do."

He did as said and followed the old man. The walk was not that long at all. The building that he had to go to was down the opposite staircase from what he went to. Following along the wall, they reached a bare barrack that was seemingly attached to the wooden wall. The barrack was a bit smaller than half the size of his father's barrack where the soldiers trained. In this place, there is barely enough space for twenty to thirty militia guards. It might fit more if the beddings were bunched up together.

He could see roughly around fourteen or fifteen kids around his age. Their levels ranged from seven to nine and there was only one that was level ten. From their levels, he could tell that they were a few years younger than him. One-third were training using bows, while two-thirds were training in the lance. While the last one was level ten, the kid was training on the sword. It was strange to see someone training something quite different from the other average kids.

With a curious glance, he looked at the kid's status. The status reads:

[Status]

[Name: Mike][Class: None][Level: 10/10][Rank: 0][HP: 8/8]

[STR: 3(5) / [1][2][3][][] ]

[MAG: 0(5) / [][][][][] ]

[SKL: 3(5) / [1][2][3][][] ]

[SPD: 4(5) / [1][2][3][4][] ]

[LCK: 4(5) / [1][2][3][4][] ]

[DEF: 3(5) / [1][2][3][][] ]

[RES: 5(5) / [1][2][3][4][5] ]

[Hidden: [CON: 6][MOV: 4][SKILL: N/A][EXP: --/100][WEA: Sword: E]]

[Growth Rate][HP: 45][STR: 26][MAG: 0][SKL: 27][SPD: 33][LCK: 33][DEF: 20][RES: 36]

Even though Mike's [2] growth rate was lower than his younger brother and sister's. At this rate, if Mike were to form the blank crest. The future potential of Mike would be much higher compared to the rest of the kids practicing. This sword-wielding kid, Mike, is much stronger than he was at the same age. It was unfair how they got good growth rates while he was stuck with one or two allocated points. While adding up points that Mike had. At every level, on average, Mike would gain at least three stats.

Visually, he could not comprehend how Mike was able to get such stats. Does it have something to do with the luck stat? Otherwise, how could Mike become so strong with those growth rates? The growth rate is indeed higher than that of the kids nearby. He could not fathom how Mike grew up.

Before he could continue following the old man, the old man said, "That's the son of Dorcas [3], Mike." With another sad puff from the old man, "Young'un Dorcas, the fallen hero of this village." The old man waved his timely fingers, "Also, my grandkid. He’ll go with chu."

Before he could ask where the old man had already left the place and gone ahead. He could only follow after this slick old man. He had checked the old man's status before, but it was not that spectacular. In conclusion, he can not conclude anything else from the old man about the 'fallen hero Dorcas.'

They both left the training ground and made their way into one of the hallways that were connected to this training ground. He only saw two hallways and the one that they took was the right one. The hallway was not that far and he could even see the end of the hallway. The end of the hallway seemed to connect to the left hallway, but before he could prove that conclusion. They made a right turn midway into another hallway. There were two to three doors on each side of the hallway that they were on.

At the end of the hallway was just a single door that had different decorations compared to the rest. It was slightly more elegant on the door frame than the simple unadorned door frames that he saw along the way. A guess and he was right, this is the working office for the old man. The old man was in the lead and unlocked the door first before going inside. The inside was relatively smaller and much more plain compared to his father's office. A desk with some rough, brown, papers with words written in ink. This old man was not simple at all.

On the top shelf was a giant bear's head adorned on top. The old man got right into work and scribbled on a blank sheet of brown paper. He could not read what the contents were comprehended since it was harder to read it upside down and it was not like he fully comprehended all of the written and spoken dialects. Every village had similar dialects but compared to other towns, cities, capitals, kingdoms, empires, and continents. Everyone would have used the same common language, but because of customs, history, and the way of living. Certain words written and spoken will sometimes also have different metaphors or whatever it means. Essentially, just stick to the common language and nothing might not go wrong.

The old man's scribbling was not that long, it just took like five minutes to get all of the content written down on the paper and the old man finally folded the letter into three portions. The first and second were of equal size and the last portion was sealed with the melted wax. Then, the old man took out what seemed like a stamp and gave the cooling wax a good personal stamp on the wax. The old man handed him the letter saying, "Kid, give this to the guards at the capital." This time, the old man was serious and stopped using the village's dialect.

He was about to take the letter off of the old man's hand when he felt resistance. Then he looked back at the old man with a questioning look. The old man let go of the letter and after taking out a leather skin while said, "Take this map. Just follow these roads, then straight south to the capital. Wait by the gate, I'll send someone with you."

He rolled up the leather map and took the letter together with him. For extra safety, he put it into his inventory. He was not expecting any maps nor taking this letter down to the capital, but since he was going there anyway. He did not refuse and just gave the old man a few nods along the way. He got a good look at the map and found out if the map's distance was roughly accurate. He could get to the capital within one to two days' walk. If he got a horse, it might just be a one-day trip.

Since he had to wait by the gate, it was better to get his growling stomach situated first. He went stall-hopping around the market. He bought an adult-sized black cloak, some handfuls of kebabs of meats and veggies, some cheap cured meat strips, three canteens of water, and a miniature donkey. Well, he planned on getting a horse, but his body size did not sit well with a horse's stature. He ties the end of the black cloak to ensure that it will not touch the ground. The kebabs were for his breakfast and tomorrow's lunch plus dinner. As for the cured meat, it was used for the upcoming days. The same goes for the water canteen, but it would be useful when restocking water.

The black cloak was ten gold coins, the kebabs were one gold coin, the cured meat strips were five gold coins, the canteen cost two gold coins, and the miniature donkey cost a total of forty-four gold coins after bargaining with the owner. All of this cost him a sum of sixty-two gold coins. After pulling the cord of the donkey, they made their way to the gate of the village. He also checked that this donkey was the one that had the highest growth rate among the other donkeys, miniature or not. The donkey's stats are below:

[Status]

[Name: Dork][Race: Miniature Donkey][Level: 5/10][Rank: 0][HP: 7/7]

[STR: 1(4) / [1][][][] ]

[MAG: 3(10) / [1][2][3][][][][][][][] ]

[SKL: 2(5) / [1][2][][][] ]

[SPD: 1(5) / [1][][][][] ]

[LCK: 0(10) / [][][][][][][][][][] ]

[DEF: 3(6) / [1][2][][][][] ]

[RES: 3(10) / [1][2][][][][][][][][] ]

[Hidden: [CON: 8][MOV: 6][SKILL: N/A][EXP: 0/100][WEA: N/A]]

[Growth Rate][HP: 35][STR: 14][MAG: 56][SKL: 21][SPD: 19][LCK: 3][DEF: 30][RES: 20]

Sadly, Dork [4] was quite the unlucky one, even stats-wise. Dork was an abandoned wild miniature donkey when it was just growing up. Seeing the hungry Dork, the previous owner decided to take the abandoned miniature donkey in. For the past few years, that Dork was under the previous owner. Dork was sent back three times and each time was because of how Dork would cause some sort of unlucky accident. Each time that Dork was sent back, the worse Dork's treatment got by the owners. Luckily, the previous owner was kind and took proper care of Dork, even though Dork would get into all sorts of unlucky accidents.

He got a warning from the previous owner, but it was alright because he knew that Dork was not ordinary at all. Not only that, Dork has a movement of six which is comparable to a hobgoblin. When the situation calls for it, he could hop on top of Dork and make a run for it. Not only that, it is easy to maintain Dork's diet. He plans on letting Dork find its food. The grass is still green and he still has quite an amount of water. Food and water are set for Dork. When winter came, he would just make sure to store some hay for Dork. Otherwise, he could just buy some hay.

Anyway, he got to the gate and Dork had almost crashed into five stalls within the market. He got a taste firsthand of how unlucky Dork could get. He saw firsthand how zero stat in luck actually works and now he felt that there is finally a purpose to use his two unallocated points. He added two points to the luck stat and it jumped up to three points. It was still small in terms of numbers, but it was good enough to have three points in luck because the average person around only has one to two points in luck. He felt that he was, at the very least, much luckier than the average person.

It was a strange thought. He sat by the gate while holding on to Dork's reins. The guy that he supposedly had to wait for was not even here yet, so he took the chance to fill his stomach with some kebabs. Looking to the side, he saw the guards placing themselves slightly farther away from him. He smelled himself and the stinky smell was quite unpleasant to the nose. He felt better when even Dork was much more docile and with a blank face. No wonder how the previous owner never mistreated Dork.

Just as he was about to finish his last kebabs for the day. He saw the familiar tinted blue-haired kid named Mike. Something was quite abnormal about Mike and he could vaguely tell that there was something off about the Mike-kid. Just the thought of it flashes, he finally remembers why it felt so similar now. He checked Mike's status screen and he automatically knew what had happened. Mike's status screen reads:

[Status]

[Name: Mike][Class: Blank][Level: 10/20][Rank: 1][HP: 9/9]

[STR: 4(10) / [1][2][3][4][][][][][][] ]

[MAG: 1(10) / [1][][][][][][][][][] ]

[SKL: 4(10) / [1][2][3][4][][][][][][] ]

[SPD: 5(10) / [1][2][3][4][5][][][][][] ]

[LCK: 5(10) / [1][2][3][4][5][][][][][] ]

[DEF: 4(10) / [1][2][3][4][][][][][][] ]

[RES: 6(10) / [1][2][3][4][5][6][][][][] ]

[Hidden: [CON: 5][MOV: 4][SKILL: N/A][EXP: 0/100][WEA: Sword: E]]

[Growth Rate][HP: 49][STR: 28][MAG: 0][SKL: 29][SPD: 36][LCK: 36][DEF: 22][RES: 39]

His eyes almost popped out of his eye sockets. He looks through the overflowing potential that is oozing out of Mike. Almost all of the stats were either one point below, one point above, or were exactly halfway to the limit. Everything except the magic stat was incredible. He also noticed that Mike's growth rate had also increased by a few points. Given enough time for Mike to grow, Mike would become a hero. He was amazed by the hero's father and the sapling son.

He was a bit envious of Mike, but he knew that the reason why he was alive right now was his innate ability to see status screens and it allowed him to manually set his given points when leveled up into any stats. This he will never forget. It is just that, compared to Mike, his disproportionate status was much higher than Mike's. The only reason why his total status points were much higher than Mike's was also because of his high level. At the same level, he would not have the same advantage.

After a good long look at Mike, he finally realizes who is going with him to the capital. It was the old man's grandson, Mike. Mike also seems to carry one iron broadsword and one bronze sword. The iron broadsword was much heavier to carry and was much about the same height as Mike's. Even with the heavy burden of the two, Mike does not seem to let up on training at all. It was quite odd how hellbent Mike plans on training even at a time like this. Mike also was not able to use the iron broadsword anyway, since it requires sword weapon mastery at the Crank.

He finished the last kebabs and sat on top of Dork. Dork was quite stable and he had no problem sitting on top of Dork. He did have some horse riding experience before, but because of his small stature and his inexperience. He had fallen quite a few times. However, he did have a good grasp on his horse-riding skills, so riding Dork was no problem. He stabilized his breathing and Mike was right on time.

He was about to greet Mike, but Mike looked quite serious and a non-talkative person. So, he left his mouth hanging before making the first move outside of the gate at a walking pace. Dork was braying and the occasional hee-haws. Following from behind was Mike with a dead-on serious face.

Well, enough of the silent treatments. It was time for him to get serious because the world is vast, and being serious would only bring benefits to him. He turned to look back at Mike one last time and he coincidentally saw the village's sign above the gate. It reads Heligarm Village. He put that into his mind. Maybe one of these days when he grows old, he could settle down here along with his imaginary beautiful wife and live a life of peace.

[1: Old Man (Doge) - A fellow soldier that was stationed within the Heligarm village and the self-proclaimed father of Darcus, the hero of the village. The elderly man was not the biological father of Darcus but was the adoptive father. However, he claimed to the whole village that Darcus was his true son and it gradually became the truth in the village. He was most proud of his son Darcus and his grandson Mike. Both are growing up greatly just like father and son. He was once the strongest man in the village until his son took over. After the death of his son, he was elected to become the guard's captain again.]

[2: Darcus - Darcus was abandoned as a baby at the doorsteps of Doge. Due to the vague details of where Doge took him in as an adoptive child. He grew up learning the sword, quite the opposite of Doge who uses the spear. The personality of the two adoptive fathers and adoptive son was quite the opposite, so on almost every front, both would like to fight it out with words. Later down the line, he went out into the world and became a mercenary. Later on, he returned home and managed to become the great hero of Heligarm's village. Sadly, on the night that his wife gave birth to his son, Mike. His wife passed away. Meanwhile, he also passed away whilst fighting against some high-rank trolls.]

[3: Mike - Mike was the son of Darcus. The son of the village's hero, Darcus. He grew up knowing who his father was and aspired to become the same. He took sword training at the age of five and wanted to live up to the same expectations of his father's history. He cherished his grandfather the most, even after he realized that they were not even related by blood. This year is the year that he became ten years old and when he took a step closer to his goals and a step outside of the village's wall along with the familiar land.]

[4: Dork - Dork, a very unlucky miniature donkey. A few weeks after birth, Dork has gotten into a lot of unlucky encounters. A wild wolf encounter, a wild bear, goblins, and even a hobgoblin. Dork was not abandoned by his parents. It was still clear within his eyes that day. He had encountered a hobgoblin that day while his parents were blocking the way. He ran away at first, then he became lost, and his parents never found him after a few days. His miniature donkey's mind is simple after almost dying due to hunger. Eat, sleep, and move on. Nothing is better than fulfilling his stomach's need for food. On a side note, Dork has a very special personality. It was one where he would become very docile around those without the intent to hurt or harm him. As for those that have such another bad intent, he would automatically realize it right away and move on. Dork is a special unlucky miniature donkey!]